Political views and food
Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 2:40 pm
http://m.npr.org/story/144572891?url=/2 ... ur-culture
Here's an excerpt from a very interesting piece that ran a few days ago on NPR. It looks at correlations on Internet searches, and observes that liberals and conservatives have different questions about food.
VEDANTAM: There's a sociologist that I spoke with at the University of North Carolina. His name is Phil Cohen. And what he did is he said can we apply this tool to politics. And so he said let me search for prominent, liberal and conservative commentators - people like Rachel Maddow and Stephen Colbert, or Rush Limbaugh.
And what he found, unsurprisingly actually, was that the places where people were doing a lot of searches for the liberal commentators tended to be liberal places. They were places that tended to vote for President Obama in the 2008 election.
WERTHEIMER: California.
VEDANTAM: Exactly. But he also found that the places which searched for the liberal commentators also tended to search for very particular kinds of foods.
WERTHEIMER: Now, that is very strange.
VEDANTAM: So let me play you a little bit of what Phil Cohen told me in terms of what the liberals who are searching for Rachel Maddow are also searching for, in terms of their food.
PHIL COHEN: On the liberal list are arugula pasta, beets nutrition, beets urine, fake meat, fennel salad, firm tofu, a variety of vegetarian cooking, vegetarian recipes. Something like a Republican stereotype of what a liberal food diet might be.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
VEDANTAM: I have to say, that's a pretty funny list.
WERTHEIMER: It is a very funny list. So what does the other side eat?
VEDANTAM: So on the other side - what he found on the other side was not so much that people were searching for particular kinds of foods...
COHEN: But things about dieting, acai berry diet, prescription weight loss and weight loss pills.
VEDANTAM: And so what it suggests is that when we think about our political orientations, we tend to think that our ideologies determine whether we're Democrats or Republicans. But I think what this research is at least hinting at, is the possibility that our political orientations are really a matter of our identities, are a matter of our cultures. And so if you're somebody who's a vegetarian, who like beet salad, it's very unlikely that you're going to be a Republican.
Here's an excerpt from a very interesting piece that ran a few days ago on NPR. It looks at correlations on Internet searches, and observes that liberals and conservatives have different questions about food.
VEDANTAM: There's a sociologist that I spoke with at the University of North Carolina. His name is Phil Cohen. And what he did is he said can we apply this tool to politics. And so he said let me search for prominent, liberal and conservative commentators - people like Rachel Maddow and Stephen Colbert, or Rush Limbaugh.
And what he found, unsurprisingly actually, was that the places where people were doing a lot of searches for the liberal commentators tended to be liberal places. They were places that tended to vote for President Obama in the 2008 election.
WERTHEIMER: California.
VEDANTAM: Exactly. But he also found that the places which searched for the liberal commentators also tended to search for very particular kinds of foods.
WERTHEIMER: Now, that is very strange.
VEDANTAM: So let me play you a little bit of what Phil Cohen told me in terms of what the liberals who are searching for Rachel Maddow are also searching for, in terms of their food.
PHIL COHEN: On the liberal list are arugula pasta, beets nutrition, beets urine, fake meat, fennel salad, firm tofu, a variety of vegetarian cooking, vegetarian recipes. Something like a Republican stereotype of what a liberal food diet might be.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
VEDANTAM: I have to say, that's a pretty funny list.
WERTHEIMER: It is a very funny list. So what does the other side eat?
VEDANTAM: So on the other side - what he found on the other side was not so much that people were searching for particular kinds of foods...
COHEN: But things about dieting, acai berry diet, prescription weight loss and weight loss pills.
VEDANTAM: And so what it suggests is that when we think about our political orientations, we tend to think that our ideologies determine whether we're Democrats or Republicans. But I think what this research is at least hinting at, is the possibility that our political orientations are really a matter of our identities, are a matter of our cultures. And so if you're somebody who's a vegetarian, who like beet salad, it's very unlikely that you're going to be a Republican.
